If you’ve followed the PSL this season, you will have seen the match officials decked out in their fresh new threads with a peculiar colour combination of lime green and purple. This is after the South African Football Association (Safa) entered into a sponsorship deal worth R50 million with OUTsurance.

Safa announced the first of a kind deal last week, saying it was entered into with the aim of upskilling the referees and their assistants “to ensure sound judgement on the field of play”.

Sounds noble, doesn’t it?

Well, not according to the PSL, whose bigwigs have threatened to take legal action against Safa, citing that the deal infringes on the rights of Nedbank and Absa, who both sponsor the league.

Safa lays into PSL over sponsorship deal

Safa has since hit back, via a statement, calling the claim made by the League “nonsensical”.

“We understand that the league appears to be complaining that the rights of OUTsurance are in conflict with the rights of Nedbank and Absa who are sponsors of the league. This is absurd and nonsensical, to say the least. “

On Thursday, PSL chairperson Dr Irvin Khoza, alongside Kaizer Motaung addressed journalists, and it was clear that “The Iron Duke” had taken exception to the manner in which Safa responded to the issue.

“For all the years I’ve been in football, I’ve never read a statement from SAFA written in that manner,” Khoza said.

“We have been quiet in the media because our main aim is to find a solution which is in the best interests of football.

“We are very disheartened because this reminds us of where we come from. The correspondence we see from SAFA amounts to insults. We can’t understand why a simple thing which could have been dealt with indoors was thrown out to the public.”

Khoza said it was important that the matter is dealt with urgently, as failing to do so could be at the detriment of local football.

“We are going to seek advice from our legal team and sponsors for a way forward. The statement from SAFA was sent out while we were still in a meeting with them in order to resolve the matter. That was unfortunate.”

Khoza also revealed that the league had tried to reach out to the governing body to resolve the issue, but are yet to receive a response.